


The Kind You Save

by MaximumMarygold



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Brainwashing, F/F, F/M, M/M, Winter Soldier AU, marvel AU, mary is up to something guys omg, not any kind of canon compliant tbh
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-01
Updated: 2016-08-03
Packaged: 2018-07-28 14:06:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7643689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaximumMarygold/pseuds/MaximumMarygold
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She would have died - she would have loved her all her life. </p><p>(The Allydia Winter Soldier AU Nobody Asked For)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> OKAY. HERE WE GO.

“I had ‘em on the ropes.” Lydia would joke whenever Allison came to her rescue, her glossed lips spread wide in a grin that was somewhere between teasing and smug. Strictly speaking, Lydia could take care of herself, she had been for sixteen years before she’d even known that Allison Argent existed. But it was always more fun when Allison showed up, exasperated and beautiful as she slammed her fist into the face of whoever had been stupid enough to wrong her best friend.

When Allison went to war, it was only fitting that Lydia followed. After all, where was the fun in picking fights if Allison wasn’t around to roll her eyes at her.

Lydia was too small, they said. Too fragile. Too _human_. She’d had no prior training and had no supernatural abilities to support her in a fight. The first time she’d been rejected she’d cried; Allison had been gone for three days and Lydia had sat on her bed and sobbed until her chest hurt. The second time, she’d grit her teeth. The third, she’d started to lie.

And then she’d lied, and lied, and lied some more. Seven forms in all she’d fibbed on. She was pretty sure that was illegal. But she didn’t care. She had to get to Allison.

Allison could have been cold and alone, she could have been _dying_ , and Lydia was just sitting at home trying to perfect the wings on her eyeliner. She couldn’t take that. So she kept lying, and she kept getting rejected.

Until the one time she wasn’t.

Two months and eighteen tries (a new record, she’d been assured) later and Alan Deaton finally found her. She was sitting in yet another exam room, frowning down at her hilariously impractical shoes and waiting for another nameless, faceless G.I to come and tell her that she wasn’t good enough to fight for her country. That they needed faster, stronger soldiers and she just didn’t fit the bill.

Instead, she met Deaton. Deaton who asked her one simple question.

“Why eighteen?”

“Because I got seventeen ‘no’s.”

~

They drilled holes in her head.

She was barely nineteen but she let the army drill holes in her head. For her country, she said, because she loved her country. But that was a lie that tasted like chalk on her tongue. She was there for Allison. She lied on eighteen federal forms _for Allison_. She let scientists who specialized in the supernatural drill holes in her head until her screaming burst the windows _f o r A l l i s o n._

For the girl with the dark hair and the darker eyes who sat on the counter in their tiny apartment and dried the dishes that Lydia washed. For the only other person that Lydia knew who liked black olive and pineapple pizza. For the hunter with the heart of gold.

For her best friend.

~

They made her a spectacle. Lydia grit her teeth, figuring that it would all end eventually. That sooner or later they were going to let her go, let her do the things that she’d come there to do. But they made her a poster child. They slapped makeup on her face, made her a red, white, and blue star-spangled outfit, and taught her to smile pretty for the cameras.

She was a walking piece of propaganda and she hated it - almost as much as everyone else did. She stopped paying attention to where they paraded her. Her smile was as painted on as the glitter on her eyelids. Until they hit the 323rd.

Lydia knew the number - she practically had it tattooed on the inside of her eyes. 323 was known for its fighters, its archers, its _hunters_. 323 is where Allison was.

Supposed to be.

“Taken?” Lydia asked dumbly, staring at the tube of bright red lipstick held in her trembling fingers. She was in her costume, the sequins biting into the soft skin under her arms and the heels of her shoes catching in the soft dirt under her feet. “What do you mean that Allison was _taken_?”

Scott McCall, Allison’s commanding officer - alpha - set a gentle, comforting hand on Lydia’s shoulder. “She was patrolling with a few guys from another unit down south. They were ambushed. Half were killed the other half-”

Lydia stopped listening. Half of the patrol was killed but Allison was taken? _Why? Why? Why?_ Why take Allison?

“Who else was taken?” She asked, voice wavering. “Was there a pattern? Was there-”

“Kira Yukimura, Malia Tate, Erica Reyes, Laura Hale.” Scott interrupted her, “All women who showed exceptional promise. We’re convinced it was premeditated. Like they wanted them for something in particular.”

Lydia sunk down into the uncomfortable chair positioned behind her, her head falling into her hands. Her makeup was probably smudging but she didn’t care. She wasn’t going on stage. How could she when Allison was… exactly where Lydia was terrified she was going to be.

Cold. Alone. Possibly dying.

She’d joined the army, let them experiment on her, turn her into something decidedly not human - _a banshee_ \- so she could find Allison, protect her like Allison had already protected her. Now it was over before she ever got the chance to start trying.

“Where is she?” She asked, “Has anyone even looked? Why aren’t there search parties? Why haven’t you _gotten her back_?”

Scott looked gutted. Pale. There were bags under his eyes that suggested that he’d stayed awake night after night wondering the same thing. It made Lydia wonder who he had that was captured. Which one of the women he’d mentioned was his person?

 _Maybe Allison was_?

“We’re trying.”

~

Trying, Lydia decided, wasn’t good enough.

She stole a plane.

Okay, stole was probably a strong word. She temporarily misappropriated a plane, with the help of Scott’s friend Stiles. Stiles was… nice. Chatty. Stiles, Lydia could definitely see herself becoming friends with after it was all over. If she survived.

Stiles was like Lydia - firmly a member of Team Human before he’d followed Scott to war. Except Stiles’ supernatural ability manifested itself as something he called a ‘spark’ and something Lydia rolled her eyes and grumbled about being ‘Harry Potter bullshit’.

Neither of them were superhuman, neither of them could heal on a dime, and when Lydia slipped off her heels and pulled her hair back into a ponytail, reaching for the emergency button on the plane, Stiles nearly had an aneurysm.

“ _What are you doing_?” He yelled. They were thousands of feet above the ocean and being _shot at_ and Lydia was opening the door?

Wind whipping her hair and numbing her face and the sound of bullets the motion picture soundtrack of her life, Lydia smiled at him. It was all teeth, no charm, just an almost vicious need to make whoever took Allison pay. She never had liked bullies. “I’m getting my best friend back.” She called back.

And then she jumped.

~

The first wave of… of _death_ physically knocked Lydia off her feet. Fortuitous, since had it not the spotlight would have hit her directly in the face. It was so sudden, so intense, that it nearly choked her. No, it _was_ choking her.

No, no that was the vomit. Definitely the vomit.

They’d told her she would be able to do that, to feel the death around her. She’d heard things before. Screaming, mostly. But never so bad. Never so _strong_. Never over and over and over again until she couldn’t gasp in a breath.

She managed to push herself up onto her hands and knees, wiping her mouth on the arm of her borrowed fatigues, and then she got up and kept moving. She had shit to _do_ and she was Lydia goddamn Martin. She nagged the army into letting her in, okay, she could do anything she put her mind to. And right then her mind was pretty damn set on rescuing the one person on the planet she gave a shit about.

For the first time in her life she was so, so glad that she was small. Without her heels she was barely five foot three, and she could slip between and under and over things nearly silently and quick as a whip. She ducked around a corner and pressed her back to the wall behind her, holding her breath as a sentry passed her hiding spot.

The camp was huge - too huge to be called a camp, really, it was more like a _base_. She had no idea how she was supposed to find Allison before they… before they…. God, even Lydia’s internal monologue couldn’t even put her fears into words.

Allison had already been missing for _a week_. A full week. Seven days. They could have done anything to her. They could have _killed_ her by then.

Panic seized up Lydia’s chest for a moment before the logical part of her brain finally caught up to her reckless body and reminded her that she would _know_ if Allison was dead. She could feel death as surely as she could feel hot or cold and she would definitely feel if it was _Allison_.

Banshee perk.

Kind of.

Lydia found the others first - Kira, Malia, Laura, and Erica. They were all dirty and covered in dry blood. Lydia would bet all of her Too Faced pallets that there had been far too many broken bones in that tiny cage that had been taken care of by the enhanced healing that were’s were known for.

Allison wasn’t with them. She’d been taken. Again. But she was still in the base, according to Malia. She could still smell Allison, faintly. Lydia shouldn’t give up hope.

More running, sneaking, hiding, climbing. She ran into some trouble and shot a man with his own gun without a second thought. It wasn’t until she was hacking a thumbprint scanner with a bit of blush and a gum wrapper that she realized she’d left him alive and he’d probably set off an alarm by then.

Fuck.

But then she was through the door and in a lab and _Allison_ was there. Barely conscious, but there. She blinked blearily at Lydia as she undid the restraints that held her friend down.

“Lyds?” She rasped, awed, like she was sure she was dreaming. “I thought you were taller.” She said.

All Lydia could do was laugh and look down at her bare, red painted toes. “That’s what they all say.” She said.

~

The sick feeling in Lydia’s feeling when she realized who was behind it all, who had kidnapped Allison and her friends, was nothing at all like a reaction to death. More like a need to cause it.

“She’s your granddaughter!” She shouted; glass shattering, equipment shifting, while every bit of her urged her forward, told her to wrap her hands around Gerard Argent’s throat until she felt his death wash over her like a tide. Allison stood off to the side, her eyes glassy and her muscles lax as she leant against the wall to keep herself upright, “What did you _do_?”

Gerard sneered. “Nothing that can’t be finished.”

Lydia screamed.

The base went up in flames.

They got out.

So did Gerard.

~

They promoted her to captain, when they got back, the stealing of a plane and the insubordination aside.

Laura Hale was the C.O’s sister.

Lydia eyed the medal attached to her new uniform and curled her lip in distaste. Allison asked her what the hell she had expected.

She said she didn’t know.

Not this.

Still reeling from the knowledge that her grandfather was a monster, Allison leant over and settled her head on Lydia’s shoulder. Her hair smelled like cheap, military issue soap and slightly synthetic purified water, the same as Lydia’s. It smelled better on Allison and Lydia turned slightly to wrap her arms around her best friend and hide her face in that dark, dark hair while Stiles and Scott and the group that Lydia had saved along with Allison poured over schematics and planned their next move.

They were going to cut the head off the snake.

~

The day they met, Allison had tripped over a crack in the school sidewalk, too busy pouring over her map and schedule, looking for her next class with single-minded self-reliance, to watch where she was going.

Lydia had caught her. Complimented her jacket. Realized they were heading the same place. Silently vowed to never leave her side again.

When Allison fell again, this time from a moving train hundreds of feet in the air, Lydia wasn’t quick enough to catch her.

~

They had a crappy apartment back in Brooklyn. It had one bedroom and one bathroom and a kitchen exactly large enough for a fridge and an oven. But it had a balcony, and sometimes when it was nice out (and other times when it wasn’t so nice out), they would sit out there with large bottle of cheap tequila and pass it back and forth between them and just _talk_. About everything.

Lydia’s crappy, official job bartending in the dance club, and her unofficial one beating up any and every man who thought it was okay to harass the waitresses like she wasn’t five-foot-three on a tall day and maybe a buck ten soaking wet. Sometimes her not so crappy night classes that they could barely afford for her to take.

How Allison should quit her equally crappy job in the Frozen Yogurt bar and start teaching self-defense classes. Lydia’s waitresses would be her first students. And then maybe Lyd’s could come home from work without a black eye or a bloody nose once or twice a week.

Allison was always so livid whenever that happened - it was 2012, what kind of man would hit a woman. Lydia always laughed it off because when the subject of feminism was brought up, nine times out of ten, the first thing the men in the room would ask was _if that meant they could hit women now_?

So, yeah, their apartment was crappy and their jobs were crappy but they made it work. They ate a lot of noodles and pasted glow in the dark stars to the wall to try and hide the cracks in the drywall. They hung up old blankets and scraps of fabric in place of the paint that they couldn’t afford. It was a crappy apartment but it was _their_ crappy apartment. Their crappy space where they could sprawl out, basically on top of each other, on their crappy sofa and watch crappy television and drink crappy, bottom shelf tequila.

When Lydia shipped back stateside, after Gerard was taken care of and Lydia had had the distinct pleasure of being the one to pull the trigger; after they’d _won_ ; after she’d half stumbled, half been carried by Malia, back to camp and had stood there blankly while her friends, her pack, washed the blood off of her hands, off of her face, out of her hair; after she’d sat on a plane for seventeen hours and stared out the window, barely blinking, remembering how much Allison loved to fly, how often they’d fantasize about winning the lottery and being so rich that Allison could take a private jet to go _grocery shopping_ if she’d wanted to; after all of that, she unlocked the door to their apartment and nearly broken down again.

It wasn’t their crappy apartment anymore. It was hers. All hers. Because she was alone, now. Because she hadn’t been fast enough. Hadn’t been good enough. And Allison had fallen. Allison was _dead_. Gone. Never coming back.

And now Lydia was all alone in her crappy apartment with its crappy sofa and crappy glow in the dark stars that Lydia always thought were a little dumb but that Allison had loved _so much_.

And she was never going to be whole again.

 


	2. I'll Dissolve When The Rain Pours In

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOW I'm glad you guys like this!  
> I didn't actually expect much since Allydia usually only gets attention when it's a background ship to Sterek but hey! The tables have turned and it apparently went fine so YAY!
> 
> I love you guys <3

She’d known she’d heard the name Stiles Stilinski before - it wasn’t exactly a common thing to call your child, nickname or not. That being said, she probably shouldn’t have as surprised as she was when Erica showed up, unannounced, in the gym next to her new apartment in L.A while she was beating the tar out of the punching bag hanging from the ceiling.

She didn’t hear her come in - that was new for her. Whatever Deaton had done to her to unlock her ‘full potential’ had made her nearly impossible to sneak up on. Erica had always been the odd one out, the quiet kid everyone made a profession out of ignoring, before she got bitten by Derek and got picked up by Deaton and his merry band of super spies to join in the war effort. Once it was over and they’d all gotten to go home, they’d split up.

For the first year or so they texted occasionally, a group chat that Malia had jokingly called the Howling Command-Babes after her favorite World War II fight team. It seemed appropriate.

Lydia had added Allison’s old number and silently dared anyone to say anything. They didn’t.

Seeing Erica in Kansas after three years of silence was, to put it lightly, a fucking heart attack. The blonde wolf was shamelessly oogling Lydia’s ass in her loose fitting sweats and Lydia was too tired to do anything about it. Instead she grit her teeth against the pang of nostalgia that smacked her right in the left side of her chest, where she supposed her heart would be if it hadn’t fallen off a train somewhere in Switzerland, and invited Erica up to the new, but still pretty crappy apartment for tea.

She could have afforded better. She had a healthily stocked bank account since she’d come back, between her money and Allison’s - _Allison_ who had made sure that Lydia got everything of hers in the event of her death. Allison who probably thought it would never come to that, anyways.- But she couldn’t bring herself to use it. At the same time, she couldn’t just stay, alone, in the crappy apartment where she’d shared sleepy, tequila warm smiles with her best friend.

She couldn’t even stay on the same side of the country as that apartment.

“You’re a hard woman to track down.” Erica said, settling herself at Lydia’s kitchen table and accepting the chipped mug the banshee passed her. “Even for me.”

“Did you ever stop and think that that was on purpose?” Lydia asked back, leaning back against the kitchen counter with her own mug of tea. She didn’t want to be found; didn’t want to exist in a world without Allison. “Someone doesn’t drop off the face of the earth on accident.”

She’d even changed her _name_.

“Mary Elizabeth Holland.” Erica nodded, “If you’d tried any harder to disappear you’d have faked your own death.”

“Maybe I should have.” Lydia sipped slowly at her tea, pointedly not looking at Erica, but rather the new glow in the dark stars she’d plastered up in Allison’s memory.

“Still would have found you.” Erica said lightly, smiling up at her friend with vividly red painted lips.

Whatever Erica wanted from her, Lydia wasn’t going to bite. She was out. She was done. She couldn’t take it anymore. “When people talk about the war,” she said softly, “all they mention is how we won. No one ever says what we lost over there.”

Erica’s eyes softened and she reached out, faster than Lydia could see or react to, and grabbed her hand. “They don’t.” She agreed, “And it’s not… god, Lyd’s, it’s not right. But you wallowing in a… a _shrine_ to Allison isn’t going to change that. And it’s not going to bring her back. She was your best friend, and I know, trust me I know, that the rest of us will never come close to knowing but… dammit, Lydia, we loved her too.”

Deep down, under the pain and the anger and the loss, she knew Erica was right. She didn’t have exclusive rights to missing Allison. For fucks sake, she’d ignored three calls from Chris Argent that week alone. But it was _hard_ , it was so hard and she just… it was hard.

She didn’t know when Erica moved, but one second Lydia was staring at their conjoined hands blankly and the next there were blonde curls tickling her skin and obstructing her vision and the edge of the counter was pressing uncomfortably into her spine as Erica hugged the life out of her.

Her body caught up before her brain did and by the time she’d realized what was going on her knees had already turned to jelly and she was clinging to Erica like she was the only thing holding her upright - she was.

Lydia had been alone for so long, trying to take care of it all on her own, trying to pretend that she didn’t need anyone, that she’d almost forgotten what it was like to have someone there with her. It was… nice. Erica’s fingers carded through her hair as her cheek pressed to the top of Lydia’s head and Lydia she just… she cried.

Softly at first, silent tears leaking from the corners of her scrunched eyes before it really hit her and then she was sobbing. Heaving, heavy sobs that hurt her chest and made her feel like she was going to throw up.

Erica eased them both to the floor, making soft, soothing sounds in the back of her throat. Whispering that it was all going to be okay, that she wasn’t alone, that she had friends who loved her, even after three years of no contact. They still cared.

It wasn’t a lot and it didn’t stop her from missing Allison - nothing would ever do that. Lydia Martin was absolutely convinced that she was going to miss Allison Argent for the rest of her life, and probably even longer than that. But. But it was enough.

~

The flight to New York from L.A was only six hours, compared to seventeen, but Lydia still fidgeted. The last time she’d been on a plane there had still been blood underneath her fingernails and her heart had been broken.

Looking down at her clean hands, Lydia managed a small smile at the thought that at least one those had changed.

And this time she was flying on a private jet. A Beacon Industries jet, to be exact. And where the hell Erica had gotten a Beacon Industries jet was absolutely beyond her but the one thing she did know is that Allison would have loved it.

“So,” Erica drawled, comfortable as ever in the seat directly across from Lydia, an honest to god wooden table separating them, “you ready to find out exactly what I dragged you out of your shitty apartment for?”

“Crappy.” Lydia corrected automatically, looking up from the chipping pink polish on her fingers, “It’s a crappy apartment. And it has character.”

“If ‘character’ is what you’re calling green mold then okay.” Erica snorted and Lydia was vaguely offended - she’d put bleach on that mold. It was well on it’s way to disappearing. “Anyways,” she said, producing a thick manilla folder from seemingly nowhere, “let’s get you caught up.”

“What. the holy hell. is that?”

‘That’ turned out to be a very thorough file on everyone Lydia had known overseas - their abilities, codenames, and status. There was a similar stamp on each one, bright red and stark against the crisp white paper.

**_ P A C K _ **

“What does pack mean?” She asked, flipping through idly.

Scott McCall. Derek Hale. Isaac Lahey. Stiles Stilinski. Kira. Malia. Erica. Lydia. They were all there.

Almost.

“It’s just the group name. They wouldn’t let us call it the Howling Command-Babes.”

“Shame.” Lydia mumbled, her eyes scanning Isaac’s page. He was the one she’d known the least. He’d gotten fairly good at the pain stealing trick of his. That was good, she was proud of him. “I didn’t know Isaac was a legit spy.” She said.

“Yeah, he’s how I got into this.” Erica leant back and closed her eyes, apparently content that Lydia was curious enough to look through the files on her own. “I was operating on my own for a few years there.”

Lydia’s eyebrows furrowed, “You’d said that you were just the quiet kid that everyone ignored until you got bit.”

Wincing but not opening her eyes, Erica waved a hand, “There was about a year between me getting bitten and Deaton tracking me down. I kind of bailed on Derek and did...some… pretty unsavory things for some pretty unsavory people.”

“You were an assassin.” Lydia realized, Erica’s ability to sneak up on people and her unrivalled knowledge of firearms suddenly making much more sense. At the blonde’s nod she continued, “So how does a former assassin end up on a Beacon Industries private jet?” Yes, she was still on that.

This time, Erica did look at her - somewhere between infinitely amused and hilariously disbelieving, “Seriously?” She asked, “Do you not actually know who runs Beacon?”

Pursing her lips, Lydia shook her head. It wasn’t like her to not know something. But it had never actually been something that she’d needed to know. Before, she and Allison couldn’t afford any of Beacon’s fancy electronics. After, Lydia hadn’t wanted them.

“Last page of the file.” Erica sighed, shaking her head but looking at Lydia very fondly through her eyelashes.

Lydia did as told and her jaw nearly hit the floor of the plane. _Stiles Stilinski - Chief Executive Officer, Beacon Industries._ Okay, so she had known the C.E.O of Beacon. Literally. And that explained why his name sounded so familiar.

“Son of a _bitch_.”

~

Lydia checks her voicemail after the plane lands - the voicemail on her old phone. The phone that she keeps charged and on her at all times for moments exactly like this when she can press it to her ear and hear Allison’s voice.

_Hey, Lyd’s! I know you’re probably asleep since it’s like… I dunno, four am or something equally ridiculous there. But I know that you have your bio-chem final today and I just wanted to wish you luck - not that you need it. You’re the smartest person on the planet. You’re gonna set the curve on this thing and we both know it, but the sentiment stands. Good luck! Kick it’s ass, Red! I love you!_

She had to have replayed it five thousand times by the time she stepped off the plane with Erica’s arm over her shoulders, steering her in the right direction towards a totally inconspicuous bright blue jeep and Stiles’ frankly infectious grin.

Lydia made it about two steps before she broke into a run, her still hilariously impractical shoes clacking on the cement. She _missed_ him. She hadn’t realized it until that second but she really had missed all of them like a limb. Four years is a long time.

Launching herself at him in an entirely undignified hug, she laughed out loud for what felt like the first time in forever as he picked her up and spun her in a wild circle like she weighed less than nothing. He was as happy to see her as she was him, she could tell as he set her down on her feet and pushed the stray hair in her face behind her ears.

“Codename Banshee.” He said, mock seriously.

“Codename Beacon.” She said back before rolling her eyes as Erica made it to them, her pace more subdued than Lydia’s had been, “Seriously, that’s not obvious at all.”

“He’s not exactly known for being subtle.” Erica pointed out, herding them both into the car, Stiles in the driver’s seat and Lydia taking shotgun.

“Since when do billionaire C.E.O’s drive their own cars?” Lydia asked, leaning back in her seat and running her fingers over the old phone almost compulsively. The new phone, registered to Mary Elizabeth Holland, sat silently in her purse. Lydia wasn’t even sure that it was on. But the temptation to listen to Allison’s last voicemail was always there.

It wasn’t the first or the last time Allison had told her that she loved her, not even close, but it was the only time that Lydia had at her fingertips constantly and that made it priceless. Even if Allison wasn’t using the form of love that Lydia maybe wished she was.

“Since this is my baby and I will feed anyone who so much as looks in her direction to Derek on a bad day.”

Lydia hummed noncommittally on what she thought was a pretty subpar threat. From what she remembered Derek was tall, dark, and stubbled with a mean pair of eyebrows but he wasn’t exactly nightmare inducing. “How’d you get Derek to join your super powered Little League team, anyways?”

“He hasn’t.” Stiles huffed, annoyed, “Not officially. But he and Laura still show up for family dinners, so.”

“Well, that’s good.” Lydia said absently, looking back at Erica through the rearview mirror, “Why am I here?”

Erica shrugged, looking determinedly out the window, “We just didn’t like the thought of you being alone anymore. You don’t have to… to join the Pack if you don’t want to.” Though it was obvious that Erica wanted her to want to, “We just wanted you close. Because official or not, you _are_ pack to us.”

Lydia took a deep breath through her nose before forcing herself to relax against the seat and look away from the mirror, “Okay.” She said.

Maybe it would be kind of nice to have a family again.

~

A cheap, wooden chopstick stained with brilliantly red lipstick smacked Stiles Stilinski in the forehead. Lydia, the tiny ball of righteous fury who had launched said chopstick across the table, continued to seethe as Stiles ducked out of the way.

“I’m sorry!” He yelped, mouth still full of whatever the hell _schwarma_ was.

“You gave a _terrorist_ your _address_?”

“He did it on national television,” Isaac piped up, very unhelpfully if someone was to ask Stiles (no one ever asked Stiles), “thought everyone had seen that clip.”

“I avoid watching the news.” Lydia admitted, shrugging one shoulder and reaching over to stab a dumpling with her one remaining chopstick, “I didn’t even have cable,”

Stiles peaked up over the edge of the table, his eyebrows furrowed together and his mouth agape in outrage. “You didn’t have _cable_?”

“No?” Lydia looked around the table - the Pack had assembled for their monthly Family Dinner  a full week ahead of schedule in honor of her arrival, “Why would I when everything I watch regularly shows up on at least one -probably illegal- streaming site within twenty four hours _anyway?_ ” All she had to do was carefully avoid spoilers for those twenty four hours. She was still a little salty at her nextdoor neighbor for spoiling the new of Bianca Del Rio’s win for her.

She’d been rooting for Adore.

“Stop judging my life choices.” She said when no one came to back her up. It wasn’t like she needed the backup, but it would have been appreciated. “It’s not like yours are any better - for fucks sake, Stiles taunted a terrorist on NBC, and when Derek doesn’t get enough caffeine he’s likely to rip your throat out.” Literally. With his teeth. “And do I need to remind everyone of that one time we had to emergency land in the middle of nowhere because _someone_ tried to join the mile high club and screwed up the electricity in the plane?”

Malia snorted into her hand, looking pointedly away from Kira, whose face was quickly turning a very alarming shade of red. It really couldn’t be said whose fault that one actually was - probably both of them. It had been Kira’s powers that had caused the short but Malia had been the one with her hand down Kira’s fatigues. So.

“We get your point.” Scott said, smiling too largely from his spot next to Isaac, their fingers tangled together on top of the table, “We all suck at being real people.”

It was Erica’s turn to snort, “Four werewolves, a spark, a were coyote, a kitsune, and a biologically engineered super-banshee walk into a bar…”

“You’d have thought they’d have seen it.” Stiles finished for her, ducking back under the table when Lydia’s other chopstick bounced off his nose.

~

She took up running. She’d never been an exceptional athlete, before. She wasn’t sure if it was whatever Deaton had done to her or the constant running into battle and then for her life, but out of nowhere she could clock a mile in less time than it took her to pick an outfit in the mornings.

There was a place near central park that she favored. No one else seemed to know it was there until one day, about two months into her new tenure in Beacon Tower ( _Pack Tower,_ Stiles kept insisting. And it really was - they all had their own floors. Not rooms. Floors. It was all still enough to make Lydia’s head spin sometimes.), after aliens, and mole people, and several mad scientists (what even was Lydia’s life at this point)  there was a tall, broad, dark skinned man on her running trail.

He smiled at her as she passed, nodding politely as she called out the automatic “On your left!”. There were two pairs of dog tags hanging from his neck, Lydia noted the second time she lapped him. On the third he slowed to a walk and called out an exasperated _“Are you kidding?”_

“On your left!”

“On your left!”

“Left!”

“Hey guess what? On your left!”

“ _Oh my god_!” The man finally cracked, stopping with a jolt and pressing a hand over the stitch in his side as he laughed good naturedly at her.

Lydia bounced on the balls of her feet a few yards in front of him. She was grinning, feeling more like herself than she ever had in California. “Is that what passes for running in the Air Force?” She asked, breathing a little heavy, but still smiling. Smiling so wide her cheeks were starting to ache from it.

“As opposed to the Army, Captain Martin?” He asked, holding a hand out for her to shake. “Vernon Boyd, Ma’am. Call me Boyd.”

“Lydia Martin.” She said back, squeezing his hand firmly. She was half his size, the top of her head coming up to about his shoulder, but he felt safe. Calm. She didn’t get a lot of calm in her life. “But you already knew that.”

Boyd shrugged a little sheepishly, taking his hand back and shoving it into the pocket of his sweats, “I did. They used you to boost morale a lot, even before you-” He didn’t finish, his eyes going a little wide and his lips pressing into a thin line.

Before she went rogue looking for Allison and then completely postal trying to avenge her. It worked - she and Scott had taken Gerard down, using his own plan against him. He’d been trying to synthesize a serum using were’s that would stop his cancer and keep him alive without turning him. Allison was just his guinea pig.

Needless to say it hadn’t worked.

“Yeah.” She finally said, looking away. “That year was… it was rough.”

“And the four since?”

Reaching up and raking a hand through her hair roughly, Lydia managed to summon a smile, sardonic as it was. “Hell.” She admitted. “But getting… getting better. I have people now.” People who whisked her across the country, put them up in a multimillion dollar apartment, and didn’t so much as blink when she woke up screaming at the top of her lungs. “Good people.” She added, like she wasn’t sure that had come across. “Really, really good.”

Boyd looked thoughtful for a moment before nodding and digging a card out from his pocket and handing it to her. It was thin, cardstock, with his name and phonenumber plastered across it. There was an address under the number, but it wasn’t residential. At her questioning look he explained, “I council down at the V.A. on weekdays. Mostly PTSD. You should come check it out, I think… I think it would be good for you, Captain. I really do.”

Stiles had offered to fly in psychiatrists and counsellors from halfway across the world, the best of the best, to help her deal with her issues, but she’d always turned him down.

Still, she took Boyd’s card. “That obvious?” She’d put on her heaviest duty concealer before leaving the tower that morning. She thought she’d looked alright, at least not like the corpse she felt like sometimes.

“Your makeup is excellent.” He said, lips quirking upwards, “But I’ve seen that look too many times in the mirror to not recognize it on someone else.”

She chewed on her bottom lip for a moment, debating asking. Wondering if that would be too much, too far, for a first conversation. Then decided to hell with it, “Who did you…?” She gestured to the two sets of tags. One of them was definitely his; the angle was weird but she could kind of make out a V. But the other…

Lydia kept Allison’s in her jewelry box.

“My sister.” He said, reaching up and touching the second pair, “She’s considered missing in action, technically, but we all know that she’s…” He couldn’t seem to make himself say the word. Lydia couldn’t blame him. “It was my fault. I was supposed to be watching her and I… there was a sniper. I got distracted. When I turned back…”

Lydia laid a hand on his massive arm, “I convinced my best friend in the entire world to zipline onto a moving train with me. It was a mission, we had intel, Gerard was on that train and we.. we went. And we got there. And it was a trap. One of Gerard’s goons grabbed me and put a knife to my neck. Allie shot him but they had weapons, technology I don’t think that Stiles has ever even dreamed of. The side of the train got blown out and Allie fell through it. I tried to go after her, _I grabbed her hand_ , but it wasn’t enough. I wasn’t quick enough. She fell.”

“That’s not your fault.” Boyd told her firmly. “Captain Martin, none of that was your fault. You did everything you could, it’s not-”

“Then neither is your sister.” She said, though it wasn’t the same. It wasn’t Boyd’s fault that his sister died, but Lydia was one hundred percent responsible for Allison’s death. She’d been the one who had planned the op. She’d called the shots. Allison had died protecting her. And she hadn’t been fast enough to save her.

~

Beacon Tower was insane - Stiles had set her up with the very best. Her room was easily twice the size of both her crappy apartments, and that didn’t even account for the rest of the _floor_ she’d been given. Living room, kitchen, bathroom, balcony, spare bedroom.

Absolute insanity.

But it did her good when she got back from her run and all she wanted to do was shower, curl into a ball, and forget that she even existed for a while. There would maybe be sad music involved. Probably. Definitely.

Hair still wet from her shower and dripping down her back, darkening the fabric of her old Army t-shirt, she flopped back on her too large, too soft bed and stared up at the ceiling vacantly.

“Yoda?” She called out quietly, still not quite used to the idea of Stiles’ A.I.

“You rang, light of my life?” Yoda spoke back, sounding so much like Stiles that it made something in Lydia’s chest unclench.

“Would…” she paused, biting down on her bottom lip; she’d been putting it off since she arrived, but… “Would you please put a package or four of glow in the dark stars on the shopping list? The… The kind that you paste to the ceiling.”

“I believe,” said Yoda after a moment, “that Erica has already stashed a couple packs of them in your ‘junk’ drawer.” Was it possible for a robot to sound sympathetic?

Lydia sat up, “Thank you, Yoda.”

“Anytime, bubblegum.”

There was no sound to announce it, him?, leaving her to it but Lydia could always tell when Yoda was watching her and when he wasn’t. She called it banshee intuition. Laura, across the globe on some kind of undercover op for Deaton, said she was just paranoid.

The wood floor was cold on her bare feet as she padded out of her room, down the hall, and into the kitchen. All of her and Allison’s things had been delivered a week after her arrival (and a week before the aliens) and it was almost calming to see their crappy sofa in the midst of all of Stiles’ fancy leather and suede.

There was a stain on the far right cushion from the one time she’d made Allison spew boxed red wine out of her nose.

Putting up the stars didn’t hurt as badly as it did in California. It felt almost cathartic. A little piece of Allison she could still have - and Allison had loved those stupid stars so, so much.

And after, when the wall across from her bed was decorated with cheap plastic stars, she curled back up in her bed and pulled Allison’s comforter around her and reached for the old phone again.

_Hey, Lyd’s! I know you’re probably asleep since it’s like… I dunno, four am or something equally ridiculous there. But I know that you have your bio-chem final today and I just wanted to wish you luck - not that you need it. You’re the smartest person on the planet. You’re gonna set the curve on this thing and we both know it, but the sentiment stands. Good luck! Kick it’s ass, Red! I love you!_

Lydia sucked in a deep breath through her nose and buried her face in Allison’s pillow, though it hadn’t smelled like her in years.

“Love you too, Allie.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always thanks to [LittlestBionicGirl](http://littlestbionicgirl.tumblr.com/) for being a super rad bff and reading this thing as I write it <3 And also to [DaieDaniel](http://daiedanial.tumblr.com/) for not even bein in the Teen Wolf fandom but still listening to me whine <3 (Also, they're an AMAZIN artist and perfect human and you should check them right the fuck out bc hella) 
> 
> And you guys know you can always find me on tumblr [Right Here!](http://dameronpines.tumblr.com/) and I'm always up for talking <3 Because I love you <3

**Author's Note:**

> Prologues are always fun, yeah?  
> Also I kind of enjoy this new writing style I'm playing with maybe I'll keep it.
> 
> As always thanks to [LittlestBionicGirl](http://littlestbionicgirl.tumblr.com/) for being a super rad bff and reading this thing as I write it <3 And also to [DaieDaniel](http://daiedanial.tumblr.com/) for not even bein in the Teen Wolf fandom but still listening to me whine <3 (Also, they're an AMAZIN artist and perfect human and you should check them right the fuck out bc hella) 
> 
> And you guys know you can always find me on tumblr [Right Here!](http://dameronpines.tumblr.com/) and I'm always up for talking <3 Because I love you <3


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